1985 Academy Awards® Winners and History Witness (1985) Actor: WILLIAM HURT in "Kiss of the Spider Woman", Harrison Ford in "Witness", James Garner in "Murphy's Romance", Jack Nicholson in "Prizzi's Honor", Jon Voight in "Runaway Train" Actress: GERALDINE PAGE in "The Trip to Bountiful", Anne Bancroft in "Agnes of God", Whoopi Goldberg in "The Color Purple", Jessica Lange in "Sweet Dreams", Meryl Streep in "Out of Africa" Supporting Actor: DON AMECHE in "Cocoon", Klaus Maria Brandauer in "Out of Africa", William Hickey in "Prizzi's Honor", Robert Loggia in "Jagged Edge", Eric Roberts in "Runaway Train" Supporting Actress: ANJELICA HUSTON in "Prizzi's Honor", Margaret Avery in "The Color Purple", Amy Madigan in "Twice in a Lifetime", Meg Tilly in "Agnes of God", Oprah Winfrey in "The Color Purple" Director: SYDNEY POLLACK for "Out of Africa", Hecter Babenco for "Kiss of the Spider Woman", John Huston

 for "Prizzi's Honor", Akira Kurosawa for "Ran", Peter Weir for "Witness" Sydney Pollack's grandly-spectacular, handsome romance spanning two decades, Out of Africa, was based by Kurt Luedtke on the life, works, and memoirs of Karen Blixen (a Danish writer who published under the name Isak Dinesen).

The romantic biopic had eleven Oscar nominations and captured all the major awards, seven in all - except in the acting categories (Best Picture, Best Director (Sydney Pollack), Best Screenplay Adaptation (Kurt Luedtke), Best Cinematography (David Watkins), Best Art/Set Direction, Best Sound, and Best Original Score). Another Best Picture nominee with eleven nominations was director Steven Spielberg's affecting drama, The Color Purple (Spielberg's first theatrical feature was the drama The Sugarland Express (1974) directed many years earlier) - the first PG-13 rated film to be nominated for Best Picture. With a largely black cast, it was an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a young black girl growing to maturity in rural 20th century Georgia. Five of Out of Africa's seven Oscars directly defeated The Color Purple's nominations. In fact, The Color Purple didn't win a single Oscar award.

[This 'un-achievement' tied the shutout record with The Turning Point (1977) - both films had the most nominations (11) without a single win.] The other three Best Picture nominees were: Australian director Peter Weir's first Hollywood film - a thriller/romance among the Amish, Witness (with eight nominations and two wins - Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing) Brazilian director Hector Babenco's first English-language film based upon Manuel Puig's novel - a tale of two prisoners confined together in a South American prison, the small-budget independent film Kiss of the Spider Woman (with four nominations and one win - for Best Actor) 79 year-old director John Huston's 40th film, the dark comedy about the Mafia, Prizzi's Honor (with eight nominations and one win - Best Supporting Actress). [Huston became the oldest person ever nominated for a Best Director Oscar with this nomination. He had won many years earlier as Best Director for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) .] Steven Spielberg was the only director of a Best Picture nominee who was not nominated for Best Director.

There was a tremendous lack of judgment in the Academy's humiliating treatment of Steven Spielberg as director. [It was the first time since 43 years earlier that Sam Wood, another director with a film with ten or more nominations - The Pride of the Yankees (1942) - didn't have a Best Director nomination.] Spielberg's Best Picture-nominated film had eleven nominations, but a nomination for Best Director was not one of them. [Spielberg had previously been nominated as Best Director in 1977, 1981, and 1982 - without a win - he wouldn't win until Schindler's List (1993) .] Spielberg's position in the nominees was taken by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa for Ran (with four nominations - Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Director, and its sole win for Best Costume Design), an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, the historical epic of a tragic, 16th century Japanese warlord. [Kurosawa was later honored with a Special Oscar in 1989.] All ten of the Best Actor/Actress nominees were American-born - the first time in Oscar history.

In this year, it was also the second time in Academy history (the first was in 1972) that three of the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees in 1985 were black performers: Whoopi Goldberg as Best Actress for The Color Purple, and Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey as Best Supporting Actress for The Color Purple. But all of them lost in their categories. The Best Actor honor was won by William Hurt (with his first of three consecutive nominations) for his role as the flamboyant, homosexual Luis Molina, a South American hairdresser/romantic who creates imaginary film dreams, and is planted by the authorities in a prison to learn revolutionary secrets from fellow prisoner (Raoul Julia) in Kiss of the Spider Woman. [Note: Kiss of the Spider Woman was the first independent film to be nominated for Best Picture.

Hurt's win in the Best Actor category was the first time a performer won the award for playing a 'gay' person.] The other Best Actor nominees were: Harrison Ford (with his first nomination) as tough cop John Book taking refuge in an Amish community in the crime thriller Witness James Garner (with his first and sole nomination) as an Arizonian, small-town pharmacist - a widower who falls in love with Sally Field in director Martin Ritt's Murphy's Romance Jack Nicholson (with his eighth nomination) as thick-witted Mafia hit man Charley Partanna in Prizzi's Honor Jon Voight (with his third nomination) as escaped prison inmate Manny in the nail-biting prison-action thriller by Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, Runaway Train In the Best Actress category, Geraldine Page (with her eighth nomination and first and sole win) won her long-awaited first Oscar for her role as elderly, hymn-singing widow/pensioner Mrs. Watts who leaves Houston and returns to her hometown of Bountiful for a last visit before her death in The Trip to Bountiful, a debut film for director Peter Masterson.

[Since 1953, Page had already been nominated three times for Best Actress and four times for Best Supporting Actress, and lost for some more impressive performances. With her long losing streak, she was the first person to win an acting Oscar on her eighth attempt after seven previously unsuccessful nominations. Her seven failed tries tied similar efforts of both Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton.

Most people interpreted her Oscar win as a 'tribute' to her entire career.] The other four Best Actress nominees were: Anne Bancroft (with her fifth nomination) as Sister Miriam Ruth - a Quebec convent's mother superior in director Norman Jewison's Agnes of God Jessica Lange (with her fourth nomination) as country-western singer Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams; Lange lip-synched Cline's recordings, unlike Beverly D'Angelo who played Cline five years earlier in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) Meryl Streep (with her sixth nomination, and fourth nomination in the 80s) as Danish baronness Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen who marries and settles on an African coffee plantation in Out of Africa Whoopi Goldberg (in her first film) as the oppressed Celie in The Color Purple All of the nominees in the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories were first-time nominees. The Best Supporting Actor award was a sentimental honor won by 77 year-old veteran actor Don Ameche as Art Selwyn - a rejuvenated, break-dancing, retirement home resident who is given the chance of immortality in director Ron Howard's light, science-fiction comedy Cocoon.

The other nominees in the Best Supporting Actor category were: Klaus Maria Brandauer as Streep's disinterested philandering husband - the Danish Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke in Out of Africa William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor Robert Loggia as Sam Ransom in the mystery/thriller Jagged Edge (the film's sole nomination) Eric Roberts as Jon Voight's vicious convict co-escapee Buck in Runaway Train The Best Supporting Actress award was presented to Anjelica Huston in the role of a Mafia assassin's (Jack Nicholson) scorned, but cunning and long-suffering girlfriend Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor. [As the director's daughter, Anjelica was the first person to be directed to an Oscar by her own father. John Huston had also directed his own father Walter to an Oscar win in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) . Anjelica was also the first Oscar winner whose father and grandfather (Walter Huston) were also Oscar winners.

And this remarkable feat made the Hustons the first family with three generations of Oscar winners - Huston became the only director to have directed both his father and daughter to Oscar victories.] Two of the other Best Supporting Actress nominees were African-American actresses and co-stars in their debut performances, in The Color Purple: Margaret Avery as jazz singer Shug Oprah Winfrey as Whoopi Goldberg's step-daughter Sofia The remaining two Best Supporting Actress nominees were Amy Madigan as Gene Hackman's daughter caught by her father's mid-life crisis in Bud Yorkin's Twice in a Lifetime (the film's sole nomination), and Meg Tilly as the childlike, beatific Sister Agnes in Agnes of God. The Honorary Oscar honoree was Paul Newman, "in recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft." From 1958 to 1982, he had been nominated six times for Best Actor - and failed each time. Newman's directorial effort for Rachel, Rachel (1968) also earned four nominations (including Best Picture). He would only have to wait one more year to win his first Best Actor Oscar for The Color of Money (1986).

Oscar Snubs and Omissions: The unsafe, inventively-futuristic film from Terry Gilliam - Brazil (although nominated and unsuccessful for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration awards) was missing from the nominations for Best Director and Best Picture (although the Los Angeles Film Critics Society awarded it those two distinctions). And writer/director Lawrence Kasdan's unique western Silverado, Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance, and writer/director/star Albert Brooks' Lost in America were conspicuously absent from major nomination categories. The Best Visual Effects Oscar award was won by Cocoon, but director Barry Levinson's nominated Young Sherlock Holmes should have won instead for its startling and superb CGI SFX - its sole nomination. The anthem Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club was un-nominated for Best Original Song, as was writer/director John Hughes.

Akira Kurosawa's Ran (although it had four nominations and one win as noted above for Costume Design) was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Score, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, or Best Actor/Actress (for Tatsuya Nakadai as Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, or Mieko Harada as ruthless widowed warrior Lady Kaede). The following were un-nominated roles: Michael J.

Fox as time-traveling Marty McFly in Robert Zemeckis' popular Back to the Future Danny Glover as brutal sharecropper "Mr." Albert Johnson and Adolph Caesar as his father "Old Mr." in The Color Purple Rosanna Arquette as bored housewife Roberta Glass trailing Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan Julie Hagerty as a spoiled, Irish-Jewish young woman unexpectedly ending up in an Israeli kibbutz in Goodbye, New York Laura Dern as a coming-of-age woman/child in Smooth Talk Miranda Richardson as executed murderer Ruth Ellis in Mike Newell's Dance With A Stranger Mikhail Baryshnikov as captured Soviet defector Nikolai "Kolya" Rodchenko and co-star Gregory Hines as exiled American expatriate Raymond Greenwood in Taylor Hackford's White Nights (with two nominations and one win for Lionel Richie's Best Song) Rutger Hauer as tortured knight Captain Etienne Navarre in Richard Donner's fantasy adventure Ladyhawke Kathleen Turner as mobster hit woman Irene Walker in Prizzi's Honor Cher as defiant, motorcycle-riding biker gang member, but caring mother Rusty Dennis for her disfigured son 'Rocky' (Eric Stoltz) in

 Peter Bogdanovich's Mask (with one successful nomination for Best Makeup) Theresa Russell as a Marilyn Monroe-like 'Actress' in Insignificance In director/writer Woody Allen's comedy-fantasy The Purple Rose of Cairo (with only one nomination, Best Original Screenplay), a take-off on Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr.

(1924), Mia Farrow was overlooked as unfulfilled waitress/dishwasher Cecilia, as was Jeff Daniels in a dual role as (1) the main fictional character of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" - a dashing explorer/archaeologist named "Tom Baxter", and as (2) Gil Shepherd - the real-life actor who played Tom on the screen. 'Selma' Oscar Snub: Why the Film Didn't Win Best Picture | New Republic By Aurin Squire February 22, 2015 I might watch the Oscars this weekend just to see some good ol' fashioned liberal squirming at having one of the least-diverse pool of nominees in recent history. As diverse and daring shows drive a golden age of TV , the other half of L.A. seems stuck in monochrome. The outrage over this year's whiteout is only half right. The Academy Awards can nominate only movies the studios release, after all. The Oscars are just working with what they're given, even as they also reinforce the system of producing films in this country. But then the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is gifted Selma.

And barring an upset Best Picture win, we'll have to say the Academy royally botched this one, in a way only the Academy can. Given that Selma has an almost unheard of 99 percent approval rating among national critics and a Best Picture nod, how does it escape notice in other top categories? Is the exclusion of the civil rights drama merely a Lego Movie moment of atrocious Oscar omission ? Or is there more? Academy leaders and members have been surprisingly inarticulate in their explanations. Pundits chalk up the snub to a variety of factors: 12 Years a Slave race fatigue , the movie's late entry into the nomination race , the disputed veracity of President Johnson’s portrayal . None of these excuses hold up. We are left to search for a unifying theory of how screenwriter Paul Webb, costume designer Ruth E. Carter, lead actor David Oyelowo, cinematographer Bradford Young , and, particularly, director Ava DuVernay all could go unacknowledged. Here's mine. American audiences have grown accustomed to slightly different versions of the same prestige picture being shoveled at them for the past 50 years.

Such films may be set in another country or in another time, or they may invoke the struggle of a different oppressed or underrepresented group. No matter—with few exceptions, the formula has been the same. The deficient diversity of American dramas reflects our problem in handling race and class, and narrows our understanding of history. Many of the self-satisfied Academy voters who cannot figure out why anyone would impugn their liberal credentials in fact helped to create this model of storytelling. "Yes, most members are white males," one anonymous voter told the Hollywood Reporter in dismissing Selma, "but they are not the cast of Deliverance—they had to get into the Academy to begin with, so they're not cretinous, snaggletoothed hillbillies." No, unlike backwoods caricatures, Academy members' racism isn't so blatant. Often it's subtle enough that they can convince themselves it doesn't exist. A few months ago, I met with a film producer who described himself as "the white guy they hire to tell black stories.” He didn’t mean this as derogatory; I didn’t take it as such. He’s just one of the white guys whom people (like me) have to go to in order to tell black stories in mass media.

He’s a successful, rich, old white male who produces stories mostly on black civil rights and inequality, and he tells these stories the way he thinks older white audiences want them. And that’s good for him. If there were more people—rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight—telling these stories, the narratives wouldn’t be so narrow. But it shouldn’t be shocking that the producer has a specific, habituated taste that doesn’t match with the Millennials scrolling through this article on their phones. So once or twice a year, studios birth a serious drama in this mold about the oppression of people of color. Typically these stories focus on a person of color being down on their knees in service. Then a benevolent white character arrives. By the end, said person of color manages to stand up and acknowledges the white character's help with a wise sort of gratitude. If this picture is to contend for Oscars, it's essential to have that white savior or to make the world of color so grotesque that it evokes white liberal pity. Preferably both. Take any number of Oscar-winning movies starring people of color: The Help, Driving Miss Daisy, Monster's Ball, Ghost, Precious.

Each has a clear white savior power dynamic. Perhaps the only award-winning film of the past 20 years to break the template was Training Day. Denzel Washington won the Best Actor Oscar portraying not the firebrand Malcolm X, nor Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, wrongly imprisoned and fighting for his freedom. He got it for a chain-smoking, dope-dealing, criminal monstrosity who can only be conquered when a white rookie cop gets black gang members to turn against the self-proclaimed “King Kong” of crooked cops. There's a pattern at work here, one that Selma subverts by not making Lyndon Johnson a savior—foremost, he's a politician, pragmatic and hardheaded. The people of color initiate, organize, and lead on their own. This narrative strength, though, becomes a liability during awards season. Selma may follow the underappreciated path of The Color Purple, the 1985 classic nominated for a record eleven Oscars, winner of none. Its narrative, built around black women, and missing a white savior, didn't capture voters. You know what beat it for Best Picture?

Out of Africa, about a white plantation owner and her affair with a big-game hunter in which Kenya serves as a backdrop for white romance. I’m not kidding. A transformative, rich female narrative about jazz, blues, and Americana in rural Georgia was bested by a Tarzan-esque story about taming Africa. Two years later Cry Freedom told the story of a South African anti-apartheid activist through the narration of his white reporter/friend. Washington was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but lost to Sean Connery in The Untouchables. The following year, Mississippi Burning earned seven nominations, winning for cinematography. Its story dealt with the violence civil rights activists faced in the 1960s—through the lens of two white FBI officers investigating it. In 1990, Driving Miss Daisy won four Oscars, including Best Picture. In it, we watch a platonic love blossom between a folksy chauffeur and his employer’s mother. Washington won his first Oscar for Glory, a story about an all-black Union battalion—told through the voice and eyes of Colonel Matthew Broderick. Thus the two lasting images of blackness that year were a slave getting whipped and a homespun chauffeur devoted to his client.

Meanwhile, Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, often acknowledged as one of the best films of all time , won nothing. It is usually the only movie on a top 100 list by a person of color. The following year, Dances with Wolves won seven Oscars on 12 nominations for illuminating Native American culture through Union Army Lieutenant Kevin Costner. Whoopi Goldberg won Best Supporting Actress for Ghost, a story about two lovers she reunites via her supernatural ability to communicate with the dead. The next two years, harsh ones for non-white stories, did see top nominations for Boyz n the Hood and What’s Love Got to Do With It, respectively a gangster picture and a biographical movie about domestic violence. In 1996, Ghosts of Mississippi highlighted the work and assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers through the narrative vehicle of white-savior district attorney Alec Baldwin. The next year Amistad told of an African slavery ship mutiny where the imprisoned rose up and fought for their freedom. Of course, it’s a courtroom drama in which white male lawyers narrate.

The new millennium began with two black males nominated for Oscars in the same year: Washington in The Hurricane, for portraying a wrongfully jailed boxer seeking freedom with the help of do-gooder Canadians, and Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile, as a magical prisoner seeking freedom through his superpowers. In 2001 the Oscars exalted magical Chinese warriors in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and drug-dealing Mexicans in Traffic. In a move we can see only as progress, Benicio Del Toro won Best Supporting Actor for portraying a Mexican cop who wasn't crooked. The next year, the Oscars returned to form. Washington won for Training Day, and Halle Berry won for Monster’s Ball, as a waitress whose Job-like trials include a husband on death row for murder, a son killed in an accident, and having to have sex with Billy Bob Thornton. A few years later Jamie Foxx broke through with a Best Actor Oscar for Ray, becoming the first non-servant, non-slave, non-prisoner, non-maniac winner in the past three decades. Momentum stalled somewhat when Forest Whitaker took home a trophy for his role in The Last King of Scotland.

Yes, he played Idi Amin and, yes, once again, the story is told through the eyes of a white expert, Dr. James McAvoy. But at this point in Oscar history, playing a head of state, no matter the circumstances, seems like a step up for people of color. How unusual were Ray and The Last King of Scotland? Let’s tally the roles for people of color in Oscar-winning movies during the past 30 years: maid, waitress, slave-turned-soldier, supernatural servant/ghost whisperer, prisoner, prisoner again, slave again, chauffeur, drug-dealing crooked cop, welfare queen mother (Precious), and—why the hell not—a third slave. Yeah, genocidal dictator is looking pretty good. For all intents and purposes, Selma was the respectable black picture that should appeal to white Oscar voters. It had the trappings of American achievement and universalism. The black civil rights movement has been embraced universally as one of the nation’s finest moments: Even Mitt Romney wants to claim connection to Martin Luther King Jr. Its only fatal misstep was skipping the white savior. Unlike in Vietnam, Selma was a case where LBJ should've tried to do more.

Instead of LBJ leading from the front or delivering a grandfatherly speech to a slow-clap ovation from a sea of brown Alabamians, it’s King and the protestors who push toward history. The president's at times mulish demeanor in the film irked folks at LBJ's presidential library, who discounted Selma's version of events to protect LBJ’s legacy. It amounts to a battle of cultural narratives. Selma tried to shift the arrow—oh, if ever so slightly—toward black stories that move beyond the white savior trope. The old guard, in turn, voiced its resistance. That resistance is blind to the past 30 years of privileged white male narratives. It’s not merely that movies are telling white stories; it’s that they’re largely the same white hero journey. American films have, in Ayn Randian fashion, ignored the collective waves that propel the world. Since Greek myths, fiction has removed facts to reach for greater cultural truth, to uncover human nature.

But these hagiographies with Westernized patriarchical narratives read like a Final Draft template for action movies: One man and one gun/algorithm/speech/magic potion will save everything all at once by himself (maybe with a sidekick/servant/secretary, who along the way dies, or has sex with him, or both). Selma makes clear it’s a movie about more than King, depicting a movement that pulls and pushes against his wishes. Instead of a typical biopic of a singular male voice in the wilderness, it's more accurate and honest as to how history advances. The change now due concerns how we tell stories, and who gets to tell them. Individual producers can't make this change alone. As much as Tyler Perry, Spike Lee, and Oprah Winfrey have done for African Americans in the media, we need a collective shift in consciousness across race, gender, class, and geography. The Oscars whiteout has shown again that we're in a cycle of sameness that leads us to misread our own stories. We have grown so decadent and defensive that we are not only comfortable with lying to ourselves, we've come to demand it. Read More Sign up for your daily dose of politics, culture, and big ideas.

Sign Up Oscars by the Numbers: 33 Fascinating Academy Awards Statistics | Moviefone Oscars by the Numbers: 33 Fascinating Academy Awards Statistics by Katie Roberts Getty Unless you're prediction-loving, number-crunching wizard Nate Silver, you probably find statistics pretty boring. But stats concerning the Academy Awards have always been fascinating, mostly because the Oscars are just plain weird, and riddled with anomalies. The ceremony got its start in the late 1920s, when movies were just making their transition into sound, and early nominees and categories reflected the sheer chaos of those halcyon days of what would eventually become Hollywood's golden age. (Though, of course, any film aficionado worth his/her salt would have a strong opinion about the exact dates that that age entailed.) As the Oscars tradition continued, the awards became a bit more traditional themselves, settling into a predictable pattern of narratives that have stayed relatively consistent to this day. But there are always idiosyncrasies hiding in the woodwork, and the Academy Awards have them in spades. Here, we've collected some of the most distinctive statistics surrounding the Awards' first 85 years of existence to give you a better impression of Oscar's past, present, and future.

If Sunday's ceremony runs long -- and statistically speaking, it most certainly will -- you can break out some of these facts to entertain Oscar party guests bored to tears by the Best Actress winner's inevitably long-winded acceptance speech. 0 Number of competitive Oscars won by a host of high-profile actors, actresses, and filmmakers, including Leonardo DiCaprio , Brad Pitt , Ian McKellan , Amy Adams , Julianne Moore , Bette Midler , Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and George Lucas , among many others. 1 Number of dollars for which an Oscar winner or his estate must offer to sell his statuette back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences before selling the statuette on his own. Oscars awarded after 1950 are bound by this agreement, and statuettes are considered property of the Academy unless it waives its ownership. Oscar Welles's 1941 Oscar for " Citizen Kane " was sold at a 2011 auction for over $800,000. 2 Number of words in the shortest Oscars acceptance speech ever, delivered by Patty Duke in 1963 after winning the Best Supporting Actress statuette for "The Miracle Worker." Her message?

Simply, "Thank you." 3 Number of films that have won all of the "Big Five" awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay). They are: " It Happened One Night " (1934), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), and " The Silence of the Lambs " (1991). 3 Number of animated features that have been nominated for Best Picture. 1991's " Beauty and the Beast " was the first to earn this distinction, followed later by "Up" (2009) and " Toy Story 3 " (2010). 4 Highest number of acting Oscars won by a single person, a record held by Katharine Hepburn . She won Best Actress statuettes for: "Morning Glory" (1933), " Guess Who's Coming to Dinner " (1967), "The Lion in Winter" (1968), and "On Golden Pond" (1982).

4 The most Best Director wins by one person, a record held by John Ford since 1953, when he won his last statuette for " The Quiet Man ." 5.5 Length in minutes of the longest Oscar acceptance speech ever given, a distinction held by Greer Garson , who won Best Actress in 1943 for " Mrs. Miniver ." 8 Highest number of acting nominations without a win, a record held by the late Peter O'Toole . He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2002. 10 Number of musicals that have won Best Picture. The last one to do it was 2002's "Chicago," which ended a 34-year drought. 1968's "Oliver!" preceded "Chicago"'s win, but the Academy took a hard turn away from song-and-dance features with its subsequent Best Picture selection: " Midnight Cowboy " (1969), which remains the only X-rated film to claim Oscar's biggest prize. 11 Highest number of Oscars won by a single film.

Three movies are tied for this distinction: "Ben-Hur" (1959), " Titanic " (1997), and " The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King " (2003). "Return of the King" won all 11 awards for which it was nominated, another Academy Awards record. 11 Highest number of nominations for a film that did not win any Oscars. Two films share that dubious distinction: " The Turning Point " (1977) and "The Color Purple" (1985). 12 The highest number of Best Director nominations received by one person. William Wyler holds that record, converting three of those nominations into wins. 12 The number of Oscar categories that have been eliminated over the years. They include Best Dance Direction, Best Short Film -- Live Action -- Two Reels, and Best Unique and Artistic Quality of a Production.

(That latter wordy category was part of the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, and ditched the following year.) 15 Length in minutes of the first -- and to this day, shortest -- Academy Awards ceremony, held on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. Awards (the nickname "Oscar" didn't come into being for several years) were handed out in 12 categories. Today, Oscars are awarded in 24 categories, and ceremonies typically run three hours on average. (Many far exceed that running time.) 17 Highest number of hosts for one Oscars telecast. For several years, the Academy used a gimmick dubbed "Friends of Oscar" that featured a roster of rotating hosts for each ceremony. The broadcast featuring the most "Friends" took place on April 7, 1970, and included stars like Bob Hope, John Wayne , Barbra Streisand , Fred Astaire , Clint Eastwood, James Earl Jones, and Elizabeth Taylor . Packing in so much star power paid off for the Academy: the broadcast was the Awards' highest-rated telecast of all time.

18 Highest number of acting nominations for a single person, a record held by Meryl Streep . Streep broke the previous record of 12, set by Katharine Hepburn. Jack Nicholson is the most nominated male actor, currently tied with Hepburn's 12. 19 Highest number of Oscar ceremonies hosted by one person. Bob Hope is the champ (he also hosted the first televised Oscars in 1953), with Billy Crystal a distant second with nine hosting gigs. 20 Most nominations for a single person in any category without a win. Sound re-recording mixer Kevin O'Connell began his unsuccessful quest for an Oscar with his first nomination in 1983; his most recent letdown came in 2007. 21 Composer Victor Young has O'Connell beat in the most depressing distinction category: Young was nominated 21 times before finally winning an Oscar for 1956's " Around the World in 80 Days ," earning him the title of most nominations before a win. Unfortunately, Young died before the Oscar ceremony took place, and the award was granted posthumously. 22 Number of times that the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars have gone to different films.

The most recent split came in 2013, when Ang Lee won Best Director for "Life of Pi" and "Argo" (directed by non-nominee Ben Affleck) took Best Picture. For more analysis of this Oscar anomaly, check out Moviefone's extensive coverage here . 22 Total number of Oscars won by Walt Disney, the most ever for a single person. He was also awarded an additional four honorary Oscars, and holds the record for most Oscars won in one year by a single person (four). The most Oscars won by a living person is eight, with composer Alan Menken claiming the title. 35 Highest number of nominations earned by a woman in any category. Costume designer Edith Head holds that title; she won eight statuettes throughout her career. 45 Number of seconds that Academy rules stipulate acceptance speeches must not run over. (This rule, established in 2010, is broken multiple times every year.) 59 Highest number of nominations for a single person in any category. Over-achiever Walt Disney holds that title. Composer John Williams is the most-nominated living person, with 49 nods under his belt.

94 Length in minutes of the shortest Best Picture winner ever, " Marty " (1955). Brevity seems to be a theme for this classic flick: the 1956 ceremony where it claimed the top prize was the second-shortest Oscars ever, lasting just 90 minutes. 224 Length in minutes of the longest Best Picture winners ever: a tie between "Ben-Hur" (1959) and "Gone With the Wind" (1939). But the latter has a slight edge when its score is factored in: including its overture, intermission music, and exit music, "Gone" clocks in at 238 minutes. 263 Length in minutes of the longest Academy Awards ceremony ever, which took place on March 24, 2002. The historic night -- hosted by Whoopi Goldberg -- saw Halle Berry become the first African-American to win Best Actress (for " Monster's Ball "), while fellow black actors Denzel Washington and Sidney Poitier also picked up statuettes for Best Actor and an honorary Oscar, respectively.

2,894 Number of total Oscar statuettes awarded from 1929 to 2011, in 1,853 categories. 6,000 The approximate number of voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which determines the Oscar nominees and winners. It's made up of separate branches composed of different film disciplines, including acting, writing, and directing. 276 people were invited to join the Academy in 2013, though the number of new members changes annually. 31.76 million Number of viewers for the lowest-rated Oscars telecast ever, which took place on February 24, 2008. Despite the Academy celebrating its 80th awards, the show pulled in a dismal 18.66 share of the ratings, thanks in part to its low-wattage winners. (Best Picture champ " No Country for Old Men " wasn't a big box office draw, prompting fewer viewers to tune in.) 57.25 million Number of viewers for the second-highest rated Oscars telecast ever, when " Titanic " took home Best Picture and Billy Crystal hosted on March 23, 1998.

The exact number of viewers for the highest rated ceremony -- which took place on April 7, 1970, when "Midnight Cowboy" won the top prize -- are not available, but the program pulled in a whopping 43.40 share of the Nielsen ratings. (In comparison, 1998's ceremony had a 35.32 share.) 1 billion Number of worldwide viewers that the Academy has claimed in the past watch the Oscars every year. This number has been widely disputed , though, and with the recent trend in waning viewership, it seems even more suspect today. The Color Purple - Awards - IMDb The Color Purple a list of 23 titles created 24 May 2011 a list of 27 titles created 06 Jun 2014 a list of 25 titles created 24 Apr 2015 a list of 38 titles created 10 Jun 2015 a list of 30 titles created 19 Sep 2015 IMDb Everywhere Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet!

Most Nominations without a Win: 11 | Unusual Oscar Records | TIME.com Most Nominations without a Win: 11 By Wook Kim Feb. 22, 2013 Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection Two films — 1985’s The Color Purple (pictured) and 1977’s The Turning Point — received 11 Oscar nominations (including nods for Best Picture) and went the night without a win. Most Nominations That Ended in a Complete Sweep: 11 The final chapter in Peter Jackson’s first Middle-earth trilogy, 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, took home Oscars in all 11 of its nominated categories, which were: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Sound Mixing, Best Use of Cinematic Flimflammery to Trick Audiences Into Sitting Through 13 Different Endings, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Make-Up.

(Yes, we added a fake 12th category there.) The Oscars, Once Again, Leave Blacks the Color Purple | The Huffington Post The Oscars, Once Again, Leave Blacks the Color Purple 03/01/2012 05:10 pm ET | Updated May 01, 2012 110 Brian Ross Managing Editor, Truth-2-Power.com and pioneering ezine editor of the first sports ezine, MLNSports The Oscars are known for many odd customs and bits of superstition, but American Blacks best know the Color Purple Curse. Viola Davis was upset by the veteran Meryl Streep at the Oscars, even though Davis had won the Screen Actors Guild award days earlier. The Los Angeles Times " 24 Frames" blog this week noticed the upset, but wrote it off to Streep doing a character based on a real-life person. Bull. Since 1929, there have been four black male actors to win Best Actor.

Sidney Poitier for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967, Denzell Washington for Training Day in 2002, Jamie Foxx for Ray in 2004 and Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland in 2006. The only Best Actress award handed out to a black woman was to Halle Berry for Monsters Ball, also in 2002. Blacks have had to fight tooth-and-nail to get any recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scienes (AMPAS). Many are placed into the Supporting category to have a hope of winning something. Denzell Washington effectively dared the Academy not to give him the Oscar that he won in 2002, the year that the Academy went out of its way to prove that it was not racist, sending Halle Berry and Washington home with the coveted golden statuette, and giving a life achievement nod to actor Sidney Poitier. No other person of color who is not a foreign national has won the top actor nod. Spanish actress Penelope Cruz is the only hispanic to take home a trophy for Vicky Cristina Barcelona in 2008.

A new University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) study entitled "Not Quite a Breakthrough: The Oscars and Actors of Color" predicted that Davis would have a tough road at the Oscars. "Did 2002 truly herald a new era for actors of color?" the study asked. "Our study discovered some progress for actors of color, but we also found considerable continuing racial/ethnic disparity." The study found that: All best actress winners since 2002 have been white. No winner in any acting category during the last ten years has been American Latino, Asian American, or Native American. Oscar winners and nominees of color make fewer movies per year after their nominations than their white peers do. Oscar winners and nominees of color are more likely to work in television, looked down upon and "considered lower-status work" by the film community. Oscar winners and nominees of color are less likely to receive subsequent nominations. The other problem is that black actors seldom are recognized for playing the same kinds of roles that white actors play. People in positions of power, particularly those who are good guys, are too infrequently ripe for Oscar contention. It's not that Meryl Streep is not a great actress, or deserving of awards.

She is. We also know that the Academy often misses seminal achievements in all actor and actresses careers. The term "they're due" often is tagged to a good, not great role or a lesser motion picture that pulls the big awards out of their AMPAS. The role Ms. Davis played, though, socially relevant acts of bravery, is the kind that white actresses like Sally Field played in Norma Rae or Julia Roberts played in Erin Brokovich. They are, among white actresses, the kind of films and roles that normally garner big wins for the actors and actresses making the portrayal. The L.A. Times is dead wrong. The 1985 stigma of The Color Purple, up for 11 Academy Awards, which received zero still lingers. The most blatant snub was in the Supporting Actress category, where the majority of nominees were from the movie, including Oprah Winfrey, who gave the towering performance of her brief acting career. She was bypassed for Prizzi's Honor actress Angelica Huston, daughter of director John Huston. White and inside, that was a slider that the Black actresses did not have.

Supporting has been a category that has seen several black actors and actresses take home Oscars, but the Best Actor category still remains the domain of the white and powerful. In the great civil rights march forward away from the days of slavery, one hallmark will be when two deserving black actors can win Oscars on one night, and actors of color are as much a rule in the winners circle as actors whose pale skin still gives them advantage. My shiny two. CORRECTION: A previous version of this blog incorrectly stated that only two African American men had won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Follow Brian Ross on Twitter: More:

Question: Which 1985 film was nominated for eleven Oscars and did not win any
Answer: The Color Purple